About David
Professor Sir David Eastwood was Vice-Chancellor of the University of Birmingham between 2009 and 2021. Prior to that, he served as Chief Executive of the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE), a post he had held from September 2006. Former posts also included Vice-Chancellor of the University of East Anglia, Chief Executive of the Arts and Humanities Research Board, and Fellow and Senior Tutor of Pembroke College, Oxford.
He was Chair of Universitas 21 from 2014 – 2021 and Chair of Universities Superannuation Scheme (USS) from 2015-2020; and has been Chair of the Russell Group and Chair of UCAS. He is currently Chair and Non-Executive Director of INTO University Partnerships, and has served as an International Member of the Hong Kong University Grants Committee between 2011 and 2021.
In 2014 he was awarded a Knighthood for services to education.
David grew up near Manchester, and is an Oxford-trained historian who published on eighteenth- and nineteenth-century British history and the history of ideas. He has a passionate interest in music, collects CDs, still plays the violin and viola, and occasionally lectures on music.